April 9th, 2010

Road Show Blondes: A Travel Diary (pt. 2)

Jayme is back with an update to the Road Show Blondes Travel Diaries. I’ll let her take it away.

It’s Day/Night Eight and we finally made it to NYC, so here’s The Loop Scoop Exclusive…

Driving across the bridge into “the” city always generates a feeling of excitement and brand-newness, but imagine driving into the city as a mark to the end of a seemingly long and worthwhile journey.

The past seven days on the road haven’t been the easiest. With car troubles and breaking down, getting lost umpteen times, cramming into very small hotel rooms and reliving the “whys” for this trip can really take a toll on one’s emotions. Every day of this trip reminds Aimee of Toby just as everyday reminds me of losing Kate ten years ago. We’ve had to muster up the strength to talk to complete strangers about why we’ve chosen such a difficult and intimate topic because they just don’t understand why we chose this particular organization. The only way to really make sense of it is to tell them about our own struggles with the cause and how it’s affected our lives indefinitely.

Not to get off the topic of suicide and all the million reasons we need to prevent it and how each one of us can help, but since these are my “diaries” I have to share what I’m currently feeling and going through. It’s only fair.

Two days ago (while we were on the road in Columbus, OH) I found out that I lost another friend, but this time to a drug overdose. It hit me. It hit me hard. Here I was on the road, trying to help people I’ve never even met before and probably never will see again to share our personal stories and losses in hopes of removing any of those terrible mind-altering thoughts and at the same time I had a friend that I knew needed help back home.

I knew he was killing himself, just in another form. I saw him last time I was home and he wasn’t himself. He was way off track and maybe I was too busy to notice. Maybe I thought it was a problem too big for my little bit of help. I wanted to pack my bags. Go home. Go to his funeral and take some time to be with our mutual friends, his family that was hurting and my family. I needed my mom and dad. I wanted to be surrounded by people that loved me. That knew me. That could comfort me in ways only they know how. But I was on the road…in the middle of Ohio with a camera in my face the entire time no less and I’m not one with a poker face…you know those that can fake it until they make it? That is certainly not me.

I had a decision to make. Give up on this Road Show halfway through or keep calm and carry on as the popular saying goes. Simply for the mere fact I lacked the ability to make any decisions at that exact moment, especially the important ones, I stayed the course. I stayed in Columbus, and headed over to Ohio State the next day.